


I like you very much. Just as you are.

by muppetstiefel



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: 5+1 Things, Adult Losers Club (IT), And Every Rom-Com Ever, And Notting Hill, Bury Your Gays Trope Is Discussed, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Jewish Richie Tozier, M/M, Minor Character Death, References to Four Weddings and A Funeral (1994), Richard Curtis Basically Wrote This, Richie Loves Rom-Coms, Romantic Comedy, Romantic Gestures, Sickfic, Stan Loves Richie, and Sliding Doors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:33:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24456754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muppetstiefel/pseuds/muppetstiefel
Summary: “Which ones would we be?” he hears Richie asks lowly.“Which what?”“Which couple.” The thought makes something in Stan’s chest tighten. The idea of marrying Richie. Being married to Richie. Dancing, and cutting cake, and kissing in the middle of a freezing British street, bad suit and oversized hat and all.“The gay ones,” he mumbles back into his boyfriend’s shirt, the sound muffled against the fabric.“Oh yeah?” Richie returns, cording a hand through his wet, matted hair. “Which one of us is the eccentric dead one?”“You, obviously. You have the worst fashion taste. I’m clearly the John Hannah in this relationship.”“Definitely.”(Or; the five times Richie and Stan watched Rom-Coms together, and the one time they were in one.)
Relationships: Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris, Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris
Comments: 3
Kudos: 62





	I like you very much. Just as you are.

The corridor smells like damp, and mould, and all the things that make Stan’s skin itch. There are dark green spots in the corners of the walls, collecting beneath the peeling wallpaper and plaster walls. To say the place looks dismal is an understatement, which Stan thinks is ironic because it costs most of his and Richie’s pay checks just to cover rent and utilities. The carpet is folded up too, wrinkling on the floor like it’s trying to get away. Stan forgets the spot where it’s particularly loose – a spot directly outside their front door – and nearly trips, making the groceries jostle in the paper carrier bags. They’re heavy, and his arms ache, and he feels grumpy because it was raining outside and now his hair is matted to his forehead. And the lift was broken. And he dropped a bottle of wine getting off the subway and it had smashed, oozing sticky liquid across the platform, and someone had tutted at him.

He feels miserable, and he looks miserable, and all he wants to do is crawl under the covers of his bed until all he can think about is the restricted way his breath sounds in the musty darkness. The bed is his favourite thing about the apartment, with its rocky frame and pile of blankets, and it’s all he wants after work, and grocery shopping, and getting caught in a rainstorm.

He can feel a stress headache beginning behind his eyes. He always thought he’d be in his element in the bustle of New York, but since moving here he’s just felt smaller and smaller and smaller. The only place he feels like himself anymore is in his apartment, with his Richie, even if it does smell like damp and have an ant infestation.

He jostles his key in the lock until the door sighs and gives way. He makes a beeline for the kitchen and heaves the grocery bags onto the counter before they split, wet from the rain. The apartment feels like a wall of heat after the chilliness of the city in the fall, and Stan rubs at his face to try and acclimatise it to the new warmth of the apartment.

He knows Richie is home; his shoes are haphazardly scattered across the kitchen and there is the warming smell of something cooking in the oven, but the kitchen itself is silent. Normally Richie is waiting in here for Stan when he’s been shopping after work, ready to help him unpack the shopping, but there’s no sign of him. Stan fishes in the bag and puts away ice cream and frozen chicken before it thaws, before peeling off his coat and padding further into the apartment.

It doesn’t take him long to find Richie, who is sat on the edge of the couch, legs spread, elbows pressed to his knees. He’s watching something intently on the television, and Stan’s heart jumps at the idea that he’s missed something they were supposed to watch together, some acting gig or late show appearance Richie had booked months back that had slipped his mind. Richie doesn’t move when Stan enters, but does make a noise that sounds startling like a grunt when Stan leans forward against the back of the sofa.

“Is that Mr Bean?” he asks, expecting Richie to scoff, or debunk his joke, but instead he nods, leaning forward more intently. He’s got a notebook on his lap, Stan notices, with an awful lot of writing on it, scrawled into messy bullet points.

“I’m researching,” Richie replies belatedly, then finally blinks away from the screen, smiling up at Stan for the first time since he got home. There’s a panic in his eyes, but it’s so small that Stan can smile back and press a soft kiss against his cheek. “Ben asked me to be his best man.”

“I thought he asked Mike.”

“He did. He asked both of us,” Richie looks back to the screen, tapping the space next to him on the couch. Obligingly, Stan slips around the side and sits down, peeling off his wet socks and balling them up, then tucking his knees onto the couch. “Said he couldn’t trust either of us alone.”

Stan snorts, but Richie shushes him, leaning back in intently. The TV plays the grainy scene of a wedding, two men talking to one another, each wearing atrociously brown suits. Stan frowns at the TV as Richie jots something down.

“What is this?”

“Four Weddings and A Funeral,” Richie gestures to the box, discarded on the floor, eyes barely leaving the screen for a second.

Stan rolls his eyes in response, bending down to pick it up. “God, I haven’t seen this film in years. I took my first girlfriend to see it on a date. I remember thinking he ended up with the wrong girl. He chooses the American, right?”

“Shh,” Richie swats at him, but he doesn’t look annoyed, just amused and fond. “Don’t spoil it.”

“You haven’t seen it before?”

“Of course I’ve seen it before. You’re still spoiling it.”

“How am I spoiling it?” Stan barks out a laugh, leaning against his boyfriend who shoves him back playfully. “How can I spoil a film that you’ve already seen?”

“You’re spoiling the sentiment,” Richie whines, still swatting at Stan, movie forgotten temporarily. “It’s meant to be romantic, and you’re ruining that by saying it’s wrong. How can it be wrong? Hugh Grant loves Andie MacDowell, and I think that’s very beautiful.”

“He doesn’t even know her,” Stan points out, “he sees what her- twice a year? Sure, they slept together what – twice? – but still. They don’t even know if the relationship would work. He knows his best friends – what’s her name?”

“Fiona,” Richie responds. Stan can dully note that he’s smiling at him, watching him, not the movie. People are talking on the screen, and Andie MacDowell is wearing a hat too big for her head.

“Fiona, yes. He’s know Fiona for years, he likes Fiona, but still he chooses some woman he sees at a wedding every now and then. It’s so stupid. And he makes the decision in the middle of his own wedding to a different woman!”

Richie’s eyes are on him and Stan can hear the laughter in his supressed grin, and it makes him smile too, a wide smile that stretches across his face. “He doesn’t love her, though. He loves Andie MacDowell. How many times have you seen this film, Stanley? You seem to know a lot about it.”

“I just have a good memory, dumbass. Why are you watching this, anyway? How is this best man research?” Stan asks as Richie hooks an arm around his neck and draws him closer, nose pressing against the nape of his neck.

He can feel Richie shrug. “It’s about weddings. It’s like a best man survival guide. I now know not to forget the rings. And to give a good, appropriate speech.”

“Bev would kill you if you messed up her wedding,” Stan replies.

“That’s why I’m Ben’s safety best man,” he laughs, then gestures towards the screen. “Look at that waistcoat! What even were the nighties?”

“A fever dream, apparently.”

Richie smiles against his hair. Stan smiles too, body pressed against the other man tightly.

“Which ones would we be?” he hears Richie asks lowly.

“Which what?”

“Which couple.” The thought makes something in Stan’s chest tighten. The idea of marrying Richie. Being married to Richie. Dancing, and cutting cake, and kissing in the middle of a freezing British street, bad suit and oversized hat and all.

“The gay ones,” he mumbles back into his boyfriend’s shirt, the sound muffled against the fabric.

“Oh yeah?” Richie returns, cording a hand through his wet, matted hair. “Which one of us is the eccentric dead one?”

“You, obviously. You have the worst fashion taste. I’m clearly the John Hannah in this relationship.”

“Definitely.”

Stan could lay here forever, against Richie’s body, their chests rising and falling together and Hugh Grant waxing poetic drivel in the background. But there are melting paper bags on the kitchen counter, and dinner almost definitely smouldering in the oven, and sleep to have so they can start everything again tomorrow.

Stan sits up and smooths out his jumper. “Can you unpack the groceries? I need to have a shower to get rid of this rainwater smell.”

“Is it raining?” Richie returns, and he’s grinning, a side-splitting smile. “I hadn’t noticed.”

* * *

It’s cold in the cabin of the plane. It’s always cold on planes, but now it’s bone-chilling, probably due to the fact that it’s two in the morning and they’re flying over the Midwest. Stan presses his chin into his jacket, but it’s his legs that are cold, not his face. It was Bev’s idea for the ushers to wear matching suits and the ones she picked are more stylish than any clothing Stan would’ve chosen on his own, tapered off at the ankles and cuffed. The trousers are tight too, cutting into his thighs and almost definitely restricting his blood flow. He should’ve changed before they caught the flight but the mix of excitement and anxiety in his blood flow stopped him from thinking rationally.

Really, they should’ve stayed for the night before flying back to New York. Everyone else was, Mike and Bill even staying for a few extra days to see the sights of Los Angeles before heading back to London. Stan would’ve loved to have stayed, to see his friends properly for the first time in ages, to wave Ben and Bev off on their honeymoon, but Richie has a gig, and Stan didn’t see the point in staying alone for the night then flying home alone. Richie said he didn’t mind what Stan did either way. Sometimes Stan wishes he minded a little more- or at least show that he does, deep down.

The cabin is silent. Most people are asleep, and Stan was too until they hit a pocket of turbulence a few minutes back which startled him awake. He feels groggy and tired, but his legs ache too much to curl up and go back to sleep. He stretches them in front of him as much as he can, rubbing at his temple with his fingers, hopping to ebb the blossoming of a headache. The cabin is dark, and mostly silent, but mainly freezing.

At first he thinks Richie is asleep, folded over in his own seat, but a closer look shows the glare of a screen, muted by the way Richie is sheltering it with the crook of his arm. He’s smiling, face illuminated by the phone which is streaming something. His mouth is moving too, minutely, like he’s silently talking to someone. Stan nudges him and he tilts the phone down, removing an earphone.

“Did I wake you?” he whispers into the thick silence, mouth carved with concern.

Stan smiles. Shakes his head. He wants to talk but his mouth feels like mush and he’s aware of the fact he hasn’t brushed his teeth since yesterday. Instead he gestures to the spare earphone, which Richie passes to him, angling the screen so he can see.

Bill Withers ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ fills his ears, and he winces at the sudden change in volume. Richie laughs, a silent, still laugh, just for the two of them, and adjusts the volume. There’s a man walking through a market, one Stan recognises from pictures Mike had posted on Facebook. He looks glum as the seasons change around him and – is that Hugh Grant again?

Stan frowns and Richie nods, like he can read his mind. He probably can, after all these years.

“He’s a Rom-Com staple,” Richie explains as the plain jolts again. Stan shifts closer. “I’m pretty sure he’s like, best friends with the writer. I wish I was best friends with the writer, with the girls he gets to make out with. He gets to do a sex scene with Julia Roberts in this. Fucking brilliant.”

“He’s not too bad himself,” Stan points out, voice hoarse from sleep. “I’m sure Julia Roberts was happy to do a sex scene with him too.”

Richie hums, almost contemplatively for a moment, then shifts, eyes back on the movie.

“It was a lovely wedding,” Stan murmurs, more to himself then to Richie. It really was a lovely wedding. Bev had looked stunning, and Ben had been smiling whilst crying the entire day. It had been so long since they were all together, all the losers reunited, and a longer time since he’d watched Eddie and Bill get drunk and danced with them to the Grease Mega-Mix.

Watching Richie do his best man speech with Mike, Stan had realised just how lovely the whole day was. They were funny. Really funny. Ben was red in the face and Bev kept cackling and Stan couldn’t help himself beaming with pride watching the people he loved on their most important day, even if Richie did keep making off-colour jokes like it was one of his stand-up shows. Stan had wondered if their wedding would be like that, if they ever _did_ get married. Richie never seems keen when Stan mentions it, which is whatever. He loves Richie. He doesn’t need a giant party to confirm that. His parents would be disappointed to never see him get married, though.

“It was lovely,” Richie echoes, as Hugh Grant leans against a kitchen counter, moping. “Never thought any of our friends would do the big white wedding thing, but it was nice.”

“Even when you started to shoehorn self-promo into your best man speech?”

Stan eyes him, but Richie just snorts. “They were enjoying it. Just thought I’d let them know where they can see more.”

The plane rumbles again. Stan can hear air hissing around them, a shift in pressure. He’s bone dead tired, and has to be at work tomorrow morning but he doesn’t want to sleep. He wants to talk to Richie, for the two of them to coexist in the quietness of a two o’clock domestic flight. He wants to watch this crappy Rom-Com with Richie now, and feel grumpy at work, but happy too, thinking about the flight and the film and _Richie_.

“Why are you watching this?” His voice sounds like a frown. He doesn’t know why. He’s happy.

Richie shrugs. “They just added it to Netflix. I remember watching it back in high school, thought I’d give it another go.”

“No, I mean,” there’s the frown again, he can’t help it, he frowns over everything, but Richie just smiles and laces their fingers together, waiting for the words to form. “I thought your wedding research was over. The wedding _is_ over.”

“Maybe I just like these kind of movies.” He sounds thoughtful again, but maybe that’s just what happens in the quietness of an airplane cabin.

“Wouldn’t have pegged you for the romantic comedy type.”

“I am a comedian, Stanley,” he points out, mouth quirking into a small smile. Just for me, Stan thinks. No one else to see it now.

“And a romantic?” he prompts.

The smile widens, and something in his eyes shift, just for a second. He looks at the phone, the back of the seat in front of him, then back down at Stan, fingers still interlaced, still holding on tight.

“I guess I’m that too.”

* * *

“I told you, it’s this apartment-”

“It’s not the apartment, Stan, for God’s sake-”

“It’s all this mould and damp, I told you it was going to make one of us ill-”

“It’s not the apartment, I’ve just got a bug. Probably from doing eight shows a week and standing in the pissing rain waiting for a cab-”

“Have you seen the state of the elevator? I think there’s someone living in there. I told you we needed to move, that one of us was gonna catch something, and now look!”

“Jesus Christ, you sound like fucking Eddie right now. Can you calm the fuck down please?”

“Oh, I’m sorry for being worried about you!”

“I’ve told you! I’ve got the fucking flu; I’ve not caught hepatitis from some fucking mould!”

That stops Stan’s pacing. He pauses, five paces from the door, three from the window, half a foot from the bed. The mound of sheets on it has Richie’s face, and he looks pale, and clammy. He’s definitely sick, and he’s caught something. He was hacking all night, and this morning called off his gig at The Stand, despite the fact that he’s been excited about it for months now, before crawling back into bed.

The truth is, Stan doesn’t know how to deal with sick people. Richie’s never ill – occasionally hungover, and once he had food poisoning and threw up for three days straight, but he’s never sick like this. He’s been sweating, and shivering, and _moaning in pain_ and Stan doesn’t know how to make himself useful. He rang their doctor, rang Richie’s manager, but they’d just said the same thing. He’s ill. He’s got flu, or a nasty cold, or a chest infection. He just needs to rest. Stan doesn’t know how to let him rest, to just let him be.

Maybe that’s why he came into the bedroom and picked a fight about their flat. Richie knows he hates it, but it doesn’t change the facts: New York City is expensive, and this is all they can afford right now. Stan knows that. He does. It doesn’t change the fact that he came in her to yell, to pick a fight, despite the fact that Richie can barely even sit up right now.

He’s a shitty boyfriend.

He stops pacing and stares at Richie, who pinches at his forehead with a shallow sigh. Five paces from the door. He could cut and run, leave Richie and go about his day, because he’s no help here. Oh God. He’s the shittiest boyfriend.

“Stanley,” Richie says his name like his dad used to. “Can you please stop fucking shouting at me? My head is splitting in two right now. Just… for a few hours. You can come back and shout at me later.”

He sounds pained. He sounds infuriated. Mostly, he sounds disappointed. Stan laces his fingers together. Five paces from the door. Three from the window. He could just throw himself out, save Richie the trouble of dealing with him when he’s this sick.

“I’m sorry,” his voice is timid in his own ears. “I didn’t mean to shout.”

Another sigh. Richie submerges himself further into his cocoon. “I know.”

“I’m just worried.”

“I know.”

Five paces from the door. Three from the window. Half a foot from the bed. He pushes himself forward, sits tentatively on the edge. Richie shifts a little, and so does Stan, closer until they’re nose to nose.

“I’m going to get you sick,” Richie’s voice is a little on the raspy side, how it sounds when he’s trying to be sexy and failing. It makes Stan smile.

“I know,” he returns with a smile. He closes the gap between them, kisses Richie sweetly. An apology. Normally when they fight like this, scrappy and loud, they have messy makeup sex. He doubts that’s what Richie wants right now, so he settles for the kiss. “I’m sorry. I’m not good at caring for sick people. Or caring in general.”

“That’s not true.”

Stan doesn’t reply, not trusting himself to not feed into his own pity party when Richie is the sick one who’s voice shakes when he tries to sound jovial. Instead he presses another kiss to his head, then to the corner of his mouth, hands resting where Richie’s shoulders should be under the duvet shroud.

Richie lifts the edge teasingly. “Want to come in?” he asks, voice low, and god he’s actually trying to be sexy now, despite the way his voice is thick with mucus.

Stan shakes his head fondly. “Maybe not. Wouldn’t be good nursing etiquette.”

“Oh, you’re a nurse now?”

“Your own personal nurse.”

“Kinky.”

Stan huffs out a laugh, reaching across the length of the bed to retrieve Richie’s laptop. He presses the space bar and watches the screen spring to life on his twitter feed. There’s his own name in the search bar, and Stan frowns at the stream of tweets. “Are you searching yourself?”

“Just wanted to see what people were saying about the cancelled show,” Richie sounds miserable. He looks miserable. Stan frowns again, squinting at the tweets. “I hate letting people down.”

Stan closes the page, instead opening up Netflix and clicking through the ‘watch again’ list, looking for the perfect title. He doesn’t say anything about the twitter search, doesn’t know what to say, and Richie doesn’t confess anything into the silence.

Instead he clears his throat. “You do a scarily good Eddie impression, by the way. Spot on Kaspbrak. Absolutely terrifying.”

Stan doesn’t look up from the computer screen. “Maybe I should take your job, then. Do the whole impressions thing.”

“You’d probably be better than me. Wouldn’t get sick as often,” Richie laughs drily.

“Not true,” Stan retorts, clicking on the penultimate title in the list. “I was a very sickly child.”

He leans back then, careful not to bump into Richie, and positions himself against the headboard. Richie watches him move. “Well? What did you go for?”

“Shut up and watch, idiot,” he retorts as the Miramax logo plays.

The thing is, he knows Richie, and Richie knows him. They don’t talk about it, it’s just a fact of their relationship, that they know each other inside and out. He knows the way Richie takes his coffee, his sleeping patterns, the different ways he answers the phone in an attempt to make Stan laugh. The things he knows about Richie change every year too. At eight he learnt that Richie slept with a night light, and at sixteen he learnt Richie has to hold his fingers up to tell left from right. At twenty-three he learnt that Richie liked him, and at twenty-five he learnt that Richie loved him.

And recently he learnt that Richie loves Rom-Coms almost the same amount. That he watches them when he’s homesick, or cranky, or happy, or anything. That must go for sick, too, right?

Stan really knows Richie, judging by the way Richie smiles at the opening title of ‘Sliding Doors’, even though they’ve watched the movies a billion times before.

Stan doesn’t love Rom-Coms, at least not half as much as Richie does, but still, when Richie turns to him and says, “Remember what the Monty Python boys say?” he knows to respond:

“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.”

* * *

They don’t really do Christmas.

Not properly, anyway. Two Jewish boys living in a cramped apartment in New York doesn’t particularly scream festivities, and most years their budgeting has gone more towards turning the central heating up in winter and petrol for the inevitable thanksgiving trip back to Maine. It’s not that either of them are against the idea: Stan personally wouldn’t mind helping Richie embrace his dad’s side and celebrate the holidays, but Richie insisted the first year they moved in together that he didn’t really care about Christmas.

“Too many holidays,” he had insisted. “Why waste a day off with more pointless traditions that both of us will inevitably start to hate?”

“That’s a cynical way to look at it,” Stan had said, but really he hadn’t cared. He’d never celebrated Christmas before and there was no point in starting now if neither of them cared. It’s impossible to avoid Christmas in New York, though, with the tourist consumerism filling every corner, and it had seeped into their life pretty easily. Matching ugly sweaters sent over courtesy of Bill, and an occasional stop for hot chocolate in Times Square was usually their limit however, and Stan was happy with that.

This year is different.

Richie says they’re celebrating the new flat. Honestly Stan is just happy to finally live somewhere damp-free, but Richie insists that they have to _celebrate_. Normally to Richie _celebrate_ means house parties and broken plant pots and some drunk girl crying in their bathroom (back in high school it had always been Eddie crying in the bathroom). Stan doesn’t mind a party, and he wouldn’t mind seeing their friends for the first time in what feels like years, but by the time they’re moved in and unpacked its Christmas Eve and the party idea is firmly dismissed.

“We don’t need to celebrate,” Stan says as he dries a plate and sticks it in the rack. A fancy place like this with an open plan kitchen/living room and they don’t even have a dishwasher? “It would have just created more cleaning up for me. You know how messy parties get.”

He fixes Richie with a look. He’s sat on their couch, body twisted back so he can watch Stan painstakingly rake his way through the washing up. He did cook, but whatever. It’s still cruel.

“Who said you’d be cleaning up?” he retorts, and Stan just snorts. “And who said anything about a party?”

Stan shrugs, scrubbing a little at the counter with the cloth before dropping it next to the sink. “You said _celebrate_. That’s Richie-code for party. Right?”

Richie frowns a little. All Stan can see is the lines in his forehead that didn’t used to be there, and the way his skin sags and pinches. “Maybe when we were in our twenties. I don’t have the energy for that anymore.”

“We’re not that old.”

Richie gestures to their coffee table, covered in guide books for places they haven’t been and a half-finished jigsaw puzzle.

“That’s just me. I’ve always had an old soul,” he returns. His voice sound bitter in his ears, but Richie laughs, clambering off the couch and rounding the kitchen island. He wraps his arms around Stan’s waist, holding him away and looking into his eyes.

“When I said celebrate, I meant something a little more intimate,” his voice is soft, a smile seeping into his tone as he presses a kiss to Stan’s jaw.

“Oh?” Stan levels, raising an eyebrow, but Richie just grins, dropping his hands from Stan’s waist to grab his hand and tug him around the kitchen island and down onto the couch. Years ago, back in Stan’s first apartment that he shared with Bill, Richie would’ve thrown himself over the back of the sofa and dragged Stan down with him. They would’ve fucked there. And in the bedroom, too. Stan always drew the line at the kitchen, though they did once venture onto the balcony, a short venture that was very cold and very hilarious. If Richie suggests now that they do it on their new balcony, or on the kitchen island, or anywhere Stan would say yes. He can’t deny Richie anything.

There’s a softness as Richie presses a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth and gently pushes him backwards onto the sofa, as he kneels in the space between Stan’s legs and follows his mouth down.

“I like this more intimate celebration,” Stan whispers, lifting his head, straining to see Richie as he presses a soft kiss to his neck. “Although I really think we’re too old to fool around on the couch.”

“We’re christening it,” he says, voice muted against Stan’s skin. He nips at it with his teeth, pulls it and sucks until it leaves a mark. “We’ll do the shower next. Then the bed.”

There’s a push and pull as Richie works at his buttons, smoothing back the soft fabric of his shirt, easing it over his shoulders. Stan helps him, struggling to sit up so he can push it off himself completely. Hands in hair, tugging, pliable and soft, the thin stretch of the couch turning, twisting beneath them. Stan presses a kiss to his jaw, and Richie tugs his own sweater over his hair.

“I thought we were getting old,” Stan murmurs teasingly, already feeling the build in his stomach, the sheen of sweat on his forehead. Richie grins up at him, and his stomach flips again, a sensation Stan still hasn’t got used to. Push. Pull. That’s always been the two of them, tugging at the other until they give. No one ever gives. In all their messy years together, neither of them has ever given in.

“No. Not us. Not ever.”

In the end, they do christen the couch but that’s where there adventures end. Stanley finds it hard to believe that they used to do this multiple times a day because all he did was give Richie a blowjob and let him jerk him off and he’s exhausted, panting and sweating. Richie isn’t in much better shape, although he does have the energy to pull Stan into the shower and dry him with a towel, scrubbing at his hair like he’s a wet dog. Stan lets himself be pulled back to the sofa, and for Richie to throw a blanket over the both of them and thrusts his legs onto Stan’s lap.

“Want to watch back our new sex tape?” Richie asks, waving the TV remote with a tired, droopy grin. Stan doesn’t have enough energy to rebuff, barely managing to roll his eyes. He presses his head back against the arm of the couch, shifting Richie’s legs so they feel lighter on his.

Richie’s jabbing at buttons until the TV flickers to life. He expects him to click through the channels absent-mindedly until he selects some shit that Stan would never watch if he wasn’t fucked out and tired. Richie doesn’t do that, though. He stops straight away, on the first channel, and leans across to elbow Stan in the ribs.

“What the fuck?” Stan responds, lifting his head to scowl at Richie. He doesn’t look sorry, instead just grins and gestures to the TV with the remote. Stan strains his neck towards the screen, already regretting the excursion but looking in just enough time to see the flicker of something fade away into two bold, red words.

_Love Actually._

Richie first found the DVD in some shitty dollar store in a mall when they visited his parents at Thanksgiving. He’d been so delighted when he found it, pointing out the actors on the box to Stan with a childish glee.

“Look, Hugh Grant!” He’d said, like Stan actually liked the guy or had mentioned him anymore since a sleepy passing comment at two in the morning. “Colin whatshisname! Fucking Snape! Stan, are you seeing this shit? That’s Snape and Elizabeth Swan in the same movie!”

“It’s been out for years,” Stan had taken the box from his grasp and was examining the back of the box. “It says it was released in 2004. How have you not seen it before?”

“Some of us we’re busy having sex in 2004, Stanley.”

“You were dating me then, jackass.”

Richie had bought it and been awfully smug about it, like he’d discovered Love Actually even though Stan distinctly remembers going to see it at the cinema with Ben. Since then they’ve watched it a hundred times.

Stan hates Love Actually.

He tried to like it. It was tolerable the first two times, and the soundtrack is pretty good even if he doesn’t normally listen to Christmas music, but something about it always makes his skin crawl. It’s all so… tacky? The jokes are mind numbingly dull and the love is all vacuous. He can’t find a single love story to root for amongst the millions – it feels like millions – of straight couples. It’s depressing, too, where it doesn’t need to be, and weirdly patriotic for a British Christmas film. He could stand Hugh Grant before, but now thinking about him makes Stan want to punch a wall, or at least fly to London and give the guy some acting lessons.

None of the people love each other, actually, and Stan would burn the DVD, or at least throw it off their balcony, if it wasn’t for the quiet way Richie gets when watching it.

He’s never quiet, and Stan had gotten used to the noise in their life. It’s always busy, always moving, and even as they’re getting older there’s a hectic way in which he and Richie interact; almost as if they don’t trust that this isn’t all a dream, and that either of them might fade away at any given point. Sure, things are softer now, but it doesn’t mean they’re any less frantic. Richie’s career, Stan’s career, the messy way they are with each other all give to this restless feeling. Stan only feels completely at ease when he’s in bed, just holding Richie, or alone in the bath with his book and his beer.

The only time he sees Richie properly at peace is when there’s some dull, vacuous but none-the-less uplifting movie playing in front of him. Maybe that’s why Stan always gives in and watches Love Actually again and again.

“Seriously?” He raises an eyebrow, but Richie just reaches underneath the cover to grab his hand, squeezing it tightly. “Was your plan to get me all fucked out so I’d sit and watch this with you again?”

“It’s just on the TV. What can I say Stanley, it’s Christmas,” Richie is smiling at him, squeezing his hand so tightly that Stan thinks he’ll forget what it feels like without the other man’s hand in his.

Stan reaches for his phone, where it sits discarded in his pant pocket and clicks it to life. The time flickers; 12:03. Christmas day.

“So it is,” Richie’s legs are crushing his, the pressure immense, but still Stan leans forwards and presses their lips together tenderly. “Merry Christmas, Richie.”

“I thought you were Jewish?” Richie laughs at the look on his face, his hand resting gently on Stan’s neck, then; “Merry Christmas, Stan.”

They don’t end up seeing the movie the first time. They watch it again, later, breathless and messy and so fucking happy. Stan doesn’t complain once.

* * *

The collar of his shirt eats into his skin. It is sharp, and biting, and the tie is stifling, a piece of cloth choking and suffocating him. He’s used to dressing formal, to dress suits and the particular way in which they itch, but he isn’t used to the breathless sensation of a tie knotted too tight, sitting on top of his Adams apple. He pulls at it with his fingers, but it refuses to give.

The entrance to their flat has never flawed him before, but now it does. He stops in the doorway, keys clutched in his fist, staring, like he’s seeing it for the first time. It’s big, empty and vacuous. There’s not another life in here for all the life lived. Not enough photographs, or books, or draws full of forgotten wires and inky, leaking pens. It’s not a home, it’s a showroom, in a city where he doesn’t belong.

Fingers on his shoulders make him jump. They ghost over his suit jacket and ease it off. It crinkles as its folded and set down on the chair. The same fingers ease him forward by his shoulders, edging further into the apartment.

Stan hadn’t cried at the funeral. He hadn’t cried before, or during. Even though Eddie kept telling him that it was okay, that he had felt the same, he was still appalled that he couldn’t even make himself sad enough to cry at the funeral of someone he loved. One old lady had stared at him like she was disgusted through the whole service, but he couldn’t even force a phony tear. He had just folded his hands in his lap and stared until his brain was no longer a part of his body and he was an empty shell instead.

He’s crying now. He would phone the old lady up, sob down the phone to prove it, but he doesn’t know her number. That makes him cry harder.

He’s eased onto the couch and there’s a cup of water thrust into his hand. He drinks it, sobs into, then tries to tug the tie forcibly from round his neck. Instead, it catches on his windpipe and chokes him, air flow and sobs disrupted. The fingers deftly pull the knot apart and the tie is thrown aside.

He’s kneeling in front of him now, watching him carefully, hands resting on his knees. If Stan is all liquid right now, tears and water, then Richie is solid, a rock harbouring him. carefully unbuttoning his top shirt button so he can breathe. Richie is always so solid; he was solid as they drove to Maine, solid when they talked to Stan’s father and rock solid as they lowered her coffin into the ground. Stan hadn’t even been able to look, choosing instead to watch his father, the way his face had crumpled and softened where it was always firm.

He’d asked Richie to describe what it was like, watching the gravediggers shovel the soil back into the man-made hole, but he had just grimaced. He hadn’t answered the question and Stan hadn’t pushed. The lights on the highway had looked like smudge paint.

He hiccups now and Richie eases the empty cup from his hands. He doesn’t ask what Stan wants, because the answer is obvious. He wants to travel back to three weeks ago and answer his father’s call when he had phoned. He had been too worried then, too caught up in his own anxieties about his father, which mainly equated to his sexuality and his boyfriend and his lifestyle. They hadn’t been talking, at least not for a few years, and certainly not since Stan told them that him and Patty weren’t going to get married and had never actually been together. He spoke to his mom, occasionally; not enough, he knew not enough, but it was hard having to hear her disappointment.

His father never called. Stan knew this, and yet he didn’t answer the phone and he missed it- her death, her last words, a chance to mend his broken family before the chance was eternally lost? It wouldn’t have worked, Stan knows this. Death doesn’t fix everything.

“Are you hungry?” Richie asks, voice unbelievably soft. They’d stopped at a drive-thru on their way out of Maine but Stan hadn’t eaten anything and had only drunk a black coffee.

He shakes his head, feels the weight of Richie’s hands slip from his knees, rising to his face. He presses the pads of his thumbs against Stan’s cheeks, collecting the tears.

“Do you just want to go to bed?” He feels like a child, with Richie asking these questions, and for the first time in years he feels fully safe. He nods pathetically and Richie gently helps him up. “I’m going to make you some tea. Decaf, because you’ve already had enough coffee to kill a horse today. Go ahead. I’ll be through in a minute.”

Stan’s body obeys the command. His brain is still back in the synagogue of his childhood, watching his father deliver a grim-faced obituary, his mother in a box on a table, suffocating in death.

He doesn’t bother to undress. The room is dark, how they left it, so Stan crawls under the sheets and buries his face in Richie’s pillow. It smells like him, a little musty but mostly it smells of cologne, a bitter smell Stan can taste. He can hear him in the other room, the kettle whistling and spoons clinking. Stan feels much further away than that, curled up in his funeral shirt and slacks, the smell of guilt and death tainting his side of the bed.

Richie looks surprised to see him awake when he enters, mug of tea steaming. Stan has stopped crying now, and all that’s left is that vacant stare and the empty space in his heart where his childhood had been. It’s over now. There’s no getting it back. Richie reaches out and runs a hand through his hair. His mother used to do that, when he was small enough to be held in her arms, when his stomach would take one of its turns. He should’ve called her more. He should’ve visited her for the holidays, not chosen Went and Maggie’s acceptance over her maternal love. He should’ve-

“I can hear your brain whirring,” Richie half-laughs, but it sounds wet and humourless. Stan has no energy left in his body to quip back. “You should sleep. You were awake that entire car ride.”

“So were you.”

“Yeah, but I’m like Super-Man. I never get tired.”

“I don’t think that’s one of his powers.” Stan could tell him that he can’t sleep because the guilt is too palpable but he can’t get the words out. Instead he claws through the darkness of the bedroom for his laptop, fingers closing around it and pulling it onto his lap. He knows what he wants to watch. The DVD is still in the player from when Richie had loaded it up the day before they left for the funeral. He knows what he wants to watch.

“You want to watch this?” There’s surprise in Richie’s tone as he settles against the headboard, still running a hand through Stan’s curls, gently, gentler. “I thought you hated Rom-Coms.”

He does. He still hates the last minute airport dash, and the wedding interruption, and the annoyance when the two won’t just tell each other that they’re in love. He hates the music and the sentimentality, the same actors in every single movie Richie selects.

His hate, however, doesn’t account for the warmth in his chest when the opening credits of ‘About Time’ fade across the screen and the shot pans across a rainy Cornwall. He can’t help the briefest fleeting joy he feels when Richie smiles at the cheesy voice over and holds him just a little tighter.

This one, if he had to choose one, would be his favourite, he decides. If only for the way it makes Richie smile the widest and press their lips together carefully. If only for the way it makes him want this life, this love, and this family.

If only for the way it makes him forget his pain, for a second, and instead remember love, and joy, and the feeling of home.

“No,” Stan replies. “I could never hate anything you love so much.”

* * *

There’s a gap in the curtains. A small sliver where they’ve been twitched back, or not closed properly. Just enough to let in a stream of light. It hits Stan straight in the eyes when he wakes, feel groggy and tired. He could gladly pull the cover back over his head and sleep again. the sheets themselves smell floral, not the musky and aftershave scent of their sheets at home.

His head is pounding. He’ll blame it on the champagne Bev had thrust in their hands just after they had arrived, or on the obnoxiously loud jesting insults Richie and Eddie had been passing back and forth all night. It’s nice to see his friends again, but it is decidedly irritating when some of them use it as an excuse to revert back to children.

Or maybe his headache came from the dizzying trek through the mansion of a house, just to get to the guestroom where he and Richie were staying. He was so drunk he could barely stand up and Richie had practically carried him the entire way. Stan runs his tongue over his teeth. They still feel fuzzy from not brushing them the night before. He’s in his pyjamas though, soft cotton shorts and a sweater which belonged to Mike years ago. He doesn’t remember changing, which probably means Richie did it when he was basically passed out. He’s even wearing socks; he realises when he rubs his feet together.

Stan rolls over and reaches out to Richie’s side of the bed, but all he can feel is cold sheets. It’s odd, seeing Richie’s indented pillow but no Richie – their schedules normally mean Richie sleeps in whilst Stan is up at eight, regular as clockwork. The champagne has really ruined his regularity.

He’s planning to roll back over, bury his face back into the pillow and sleep the headache away but his phones tinny ringtone drags him out of his blissful half-asleep state. With a groan he reaches across to the bedside table and squints at the screen. Richie’s photo – a blurry shot from a Halloween back in college when he dressed up as Stan on a dare – illuminates the screen. Stan taps the answer button.

“Hullo,” he mumbles, voice thick with sleep. “What do you want?”

He’s expecting Richie to ask if he wants eggs, or some help with his morning wood if he’s feeling particularly annoying today, but instead there is the sound of static on the other line, and someone shushing and then Richie’s voice. “Go to the window.”

“What?” Stan asks but the phone call ends with a small click. He frowns at the phone for a moment, then tosses it on his bed and clambers out. His head still hurts and he isn’t in the mood for Richie’s games. This trip is the first time in months where they’ve been together for longer than a couple of hours and Stan had thought they might actually get to be together – it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve fucked in Ben and Bev’s spare room.

He smooths his static hairs down as he goes, then twitches the curtain back fully.

Stan doesn’t know what he’s expecting to be waiting for him beneath the window. Part of him thinks that Richie is just fucking with him, that he’s actually in their en suite and is going to jump out in a terribly timed prank. Most of him, however, is too tired to come up with hypotheticals.

He isn’t expecting Richie to be stood beneath the window, arms straining to support the weight of an old school stereo system. He’s wearing baggy jeans, too, and that horrible grey fleeces jacket that John Cusak wears. The stereo is playing something that Stan can’t hear, so he reaches forward and pushes the window open.

The sounds of Frankie Valli is thick in the air, crackling through the stereo speakers and Richie is singing too, crooning along. When Richie notices him he grins, a face splitting grin, arms shaking underneath the stereo. He fumbles, nearly drops it, and Stan snorts out an ugly laugh. He doesn’t understand what’s happening, but he doesn’t trust his voice to ask.

“These windows are fucking thick,” Richie shouts up, and Stan snorts again. “Haystack must be a really good architect. I’ve been shouting you for ten minutes.”

“You should’ve tried throwing rocks,” Stan suggests, trying to sound cool but the shake of his voice betraying him. He leans against the window frame, scared that if he doesn’t his body will give way and he’ll fall out.

Richie just smiles up at him. “This isn’t Romeo and Juliet, Stanley.”

“What is it, then? What’s going on?” He asks, voice giving way to a mix of a laugh and a sob. Richie doesn’t answer, not at first, instead setting the stereo down onto the neat grass of Bev’s lawn. “Richie, what’s going on? I’m coming down.”

“No, no,” he calls back, frantically shaking his head and starting for front entrance to the house. “Stay right there! Don’t move! I’m coming up!”

Richie takes off across the lawn and Stan watches him, a laugh bubbling in his throat, from the hilarity of it all and the tiredness he still feels.

It takes Richie five minutes to reach the room. Stan spends that time pacing back and forth, throwing occasional glances out the window and sending accusatory texts to Bev and Eddie, asking if they had any hand in Richie’s ‘Say Anything’ outburst.

He hears Richie’s footsteps, the heavy way they land on the hardwood flooring and he reaches for the door handle, ready to yank the door open. It’s Richie who stops him, grabbing the handle first and forcing the door closed. It would feel like a horror movie if it weren’t for the soft sounds of ‘Friday I’m in Love’ playing through the open window.

“Richie?” Stan asks tentatively. His question is met by a small hum of affirmation and the heavy panting of a man who has just run up two flights of stairs. “Are you okay?”

“All the bed’er for seeing you, my love,” the accent is terrible, but Stan laughs anyway, pressing his forehead against the door.

“You’re not actually seeing me,” no answer. Stan tries again. “Richie, can I open the door?”

“No, don’t,” Stan lets his body relax against the side of the door, leaning on it like he can be closer to Richie if he does. There’s some shuffling on the other side. Stan’s hand itches to open the door. “No- It’s – It’s easier if you don’t. For me. It’s easier for me.”

“You breaking up with me?” Stan jokes. Richie huffs out a laugh.

“Yeah. Got sick of waking up to your ugly mug every morning. I’m dating a supermodel now.”

“Richie-”

A small intake of breath. Stan splays his hand against the wood.

“Okay, I’ll get on with it. I’m just- just trying to find the right words. God, this looks so much easier in the movies. I knew I should’ve written this down, but Bev said just speak from your heart. What kind of bullshit is that? I didn’t even write my own jokes for years, you know that. Why speak from my heart when speaking from someone else’s is that much easier? If it’s okay with you, I’m going to steal the words of some of the greats instead: Hugh Grant, specifically. I know how much you love him. The thing is, Stanley, I’m just a man way past his prime, standing in front of a man way out of his league-”

“You’re not standing in front of me,” Stan laughs and oh God, when did he start crying?

“Shut up, you’re ruining the moment,” Richie returns. His voice is laced with tears too. “God, Stanley, can’t you let me be sentimental for one second? If you can’t say it at Christmas, when can you say it?”

There’s a pause, the shallow sound of Richie’s breath, and Stan’s heart pounding in his chest.

“I know you hate the big unrealistic romantic gestures more than you hate the cheesy dialogue and the bad fashion, but if anyone deserves a declaration of love that big, it’s you Stan. You deserve the last minute airport dash, and the giant cards outside in the snow, and the special song at the concert. You deserve someone pounding on the glass at your wedding and screaming that they love you.”

Richie has clearly forgotten the end of The Graduate, but Stan doesn’t say anything.

“I really did want to run through an airport for you but Mike said I would definitely get arrested for that, and while you deserve the gesture I don’t deserve the jail time. I guess all you get is me, then and this half-baked speech, and you can say no because it really does suck. It was better in my head I promise. But you shouldn’t say no, because… well, to use the words of another great, when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. I guess that’s why I’m… why I’m asking you to marry me?”

Stan opens his mouth to say something but finds he can’t choke out an answer. His throat has closed, and all he can feel is the door in front of him, and all he can hear is the distance sounds of The Beatles and Richie breathing on the other side.

“Well…” Richie chuckles but he sounds nervous. “What do you say? You gonna chose me? Marry me? Let me make you happy?”

“Julia Roberts was the villain in that movie,” the words come out without meaning to, and then he finds his hand closing around the door handle and tugging the door open.

Richie is staring at him. He’s not on one knee, and there’s no ring, but there is Richie, smiling at him, shifting his weight between his two feet.

“Is that it?” Stan asks, unable to supress his small smirk. “No brass band, no flash mob?”

“I called Hugh Grant but he told me to fuck off,” Richie returns. He looks ridiculous in the Say Anything get up, looks older than ever but so, so beautiful. Stan wants to reach out and kiss him, but he doesn’t.

“Not got any more quotes for me?”

Richie shrugs. He’s not really thinking, Stan can tell by the way his lips twitch. He knows exactly what he wants to say, exactly what to do to get Stan, to push him from the doorway and into his arms. “I want all of you, forever, you and me, every day.”

“I fucking hate The Notebook,” is all Stan can say before pushing forward and throwing himself against Richie.

**Author's Note:**

> I finished this the day Richard Curtis was cancelled on Twitter and decided to wait to post it lmao.  
> If you spotted every Rom-Com reference in this you're a real one.  
> It was really nice writing something fluffier, but I promise my other fics will get updates soon!!


End file.
